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"Once upon a time," Sam said, tucking in his daughter, and brushing his fingers through Mary Winchester's tiny little curls as he drew away, "there was an angel; an angel who had lost his wings."
"Angel!" Mary called, wriggling one hand free from under the blankets and pointing up at the mobile hanging over her bed. She'd had it since she was a baby, a gift from an uncle she hardly knew. Tiny white angels blowing horns bobbed and span as it turned, the glitter on their wings catching in the twinkle from the nightlight.
"Yes, an angel," Sam pressed, reaching across to tuck her back in again, smiling in bemusement as she blinked owlishly up at him, and obeyed his silent command. She curled in toward him, as he sat in the chair beside the bed.
"This angel had fallen all the way down to earth," he continued, "and when he got there, he realized that his wings had fallen off on the way down. They'd caught in a strong breeze, and blown away over the mountains, far off where he couldn't see them. Poor little angel."
"Poor angel," Mary cooed, empathetically. Sam had to bite his lip not to giggle; she'd be so offended if she saw that he was laughing at her.
When Sam had control again, he pressed on with the story.
"Not only did the angel lose his wings, but he bumped his head on the way down. But that's okay, because he happened to land in our back yard, and we know how to take care of angels, don't we?"
Mary nodded, and Sam settled in to tell his story. And maybe he left out parts of it, simplified others, but it was ultimately a love story, and Mary fell asleep before the end.
-----
It felt like years since Dean had been home. Not his home, obviously, there was no such thing any more, but Sam's. Small town Kansas really was as close to home as a Winchester could be, and it had surprised literally no one when Sam had chosen the state to settle down in. Considering all the places they'd been to, all the things they'd seen, settling down in Kansas was an obvious choice. Sam couldn't do anything easy, though. He might have settled in the same state as the Bunker, but it was still a two hour drive away. A stroll around the block to Winchesters of old, but it was strange how what had seemed like not so far at first had become a four hour round trip later, and that was even assuming that Dean wasn't off in the Rockies fighting dragons or slaying a kelpie in Virginia.
At least Dean had company, and not just in the form of his Led Zeppelin albums. An angel sat where his younger brother once had. The years had loosened Cas up, Sam said, but Dean didn't see it. Castiel was... He was still Castiel. Still awkward, still motivated by things Dean could barely untangle. He'd turned down leadership in Heaven once again, only to champion Lucifer's positioning, and that? Should have gone horribly. But who was left to complain? With Lucifer in Heaven, at least he wasn't hounding Sam at every opportunity. And the responsibility of guarding Heaven's souls, and protecting the lives of Heaven's last few servants, had mellowed the archangel unexpectedly. Apparently being forgiven by God had its advantages. Of course, Castiel had him on a certain kind of leash, as his occasional adviser.
But more important than any of that, than Cas being a god damned hero in a trench coat, he was there now that Sam was gone. He was right there, at least most of the time, making sure Dean had someone to chat to, or sing at, on the long, lonely road. There really were no words for how much that meant to him.
And there was nothing more to it than that. Never had been, and never would be. End of story.
Cas had perked up when Dean had suggested visiting the family for Sam's birthday, and when Dean had begun to make excuses, because they were in Texas and it was going to be a longer drive than usual to get there, the angel had more or less insisted. He'd gone so far as to drive nights, just to make up the hours to get them there in time for the weekend.
Now they were surrounded by cornfields, all of them stripped empty and freshly seeded. By late summer, the corn would be tall enough to swim in. A farmer would cut a maze, somewhere, and Sam would lead his kids through it, his head poking over the top just the same way as it once had when Dean had perched Sam up on top of his shoulders for a better look. But it was May, and everything was fresh and bright and cheerful, if not worn in places, the paint chipped and faded on the old red barns they passed. As much as money was seeping back into the country, it still wasn't reaching places like this--not that economics was really on Dean's mind. Ever. He was thinking of his nephews, and his tiny new niece, practically humming through with excitement at the prospect of seeing them again.
When they turned onto the bumpy dirt track that led down to the Winchester farm, Dean shot a glance at the angel in the seat beside him. Cas had turned off the stereo, and now he seemed to press forward in his seat, as though he, too, were hunting down the first glimpse of a small child galloping across the courtyard.
Dean, however, spotted Adam first.
"He's riding the tractor!"
Castiel knocked back in his seat with a jerk, disappointed, and then perked up, pointing across toward the door of the house, where John came tumbling out with a mongrel looking dog and half a dozen puppies in tow. All of them came rushing across the yard together, and Dean only just about got the car into park before tiny animals and eager children got under the wheels. Sam was on their tails, trying to slow their roll, but it was already far too late for that. Doors were pulled open on Dean's side, and he was practically dragged out for demanding hugs and shoves from the two boys, clearly just as eager to express how happy they were to see him as they were to start wrestling with him.
"Hey. Hey!"
Dean didn't try to stop it. He laughed, and did his best not to step on any tiny bodies or little feet, but beyond that there wasn't much for it but to be swept under.
"Hey," Sam said, a moment later. "Cas isn't getting any love."
At once, the children both charged around the other side of the car to assault Castiel, instead, leaving Sam and Dean to embrace, squeezing each other tightly, patting hard between each others shoulder blades as though to say "that's enough, man", before throwing caution to the wind and hugging as long as they liked. When they broke off, Cas was looking over, wearing an odd look. Dean could see right through it.
"Whatever, man. I can be as Hallmark as I like." He grinned at his brother. "It's been forever, Sammy."
"And whose fault is that?"
It wasn't really a question, or an accusation. Dean didn't bother even to look chagrined, because Lucille emerged from the front door a moment later, carrying a tiny little blonde haired toddler in her arms. Mary was two and a half, and Dean had never met her.
"Is this her? Mary Winchester?"
Sam smiled, and accepted Mary into his own arms, tilting her around to face Dean. "Mary, this is Dean. He's my big brother, like John and Adam are your big brothers."
Mary was clearly shy, because she buried her face in her father's shoulder, and no matter how Sam tried to rearrange her, she just kept hiding her face again. Dean laughed, and that just seemed to make her more determined, and Sam bit his lip to keep from laughing as well.
"She knows you're laughing at her. She hates that."
"Laughing at her? No way. No. I'm laughing at your face, Sam. How did you get chocolate on your nose like that?"
Just as planned, Mary tilted her face up to look at Sam's nose, and then she turned a playful glare at Dean as though to say "I saw what you did there. It is so on." She bumped her little fists against Sam's shoulder, which seemed to be the signal for putting her down, considering a moment later she was on two surprisingly sure feet, toddling off across the yard with puppies swarming around her boisterously.
"She's uh..." Dean began, before looking over to Castiel for help.
"Contrary," Cas supplied.
"Contrary?"
"Like the nursery rhyme." Castiel knew he was going to end up in a corner explaining that one, and so he turned his attention to his own introductions. "Sam, Lucille. It's good to see you both again."
Lucille was the first to break ranks and give the angel a hug. Of course, she'd been very fond of him ever since Castiel had saved her life, and the fact that he'd introduced her to her future husband hadn't gone unrewarded either. When he'd hugged Sam as well, and had his hair ruffled fondly for his efforts, Lucille twisted an arm through his and led him off in the direction of the house.
"Come and see the new kitchen. Sam just finished installing it."
That left Sam and Dean alone, standing in the yard beside the impala. She was still as pristine, as loved as she had ever been, and it showed. Sam smiled, and reached out to touch the trim, only to have Dean laugh at him as he snatched his hand back.
"Yeah, she's hot. You sure you don't want to take her for a spin, for old time's sake?"
Sam rolled his eyes. "Maybe later. I forgot to get ice, and Lucy wants us to picnic down at the lake on Sunday, so... We'll have time."
"Picnic at the lake. You know, there used to be a time when your birthday meant whiskey chasers and a burger with a candle in it."
"There's going to be actual cake."
"Seriously?"
"Actual cake, Dean. Home made. With frosting."
"Did I mention I love your wife?" Dean gave Sam a serious look, like he was anticipating trying to steal Lucille away from him. It was enough to make Sam burst out laughing.
"Alright," Dean pressed on. "So guest rooms. Same as last time?"
"Nope." Sam waited, as Dean fetched the bags out of the car. "We had to change one of them into a nursery for Mary. So now the guest rooms are sort of...a guest room, singular."
"Twin?"
"Oh yeah, twin. But it's not like Cas sleeps anyway, right?"
"He watches Netflix at four in the morning."
Sam just made a contemplative noise, and shrugged, and as Dean pulled their bags out of the car he led the way across the yard. John was babysitting Mary now, trying to teach her the command to make their dog sit, and Dean skipped a step or two to pause and watch them, consequently totally missing whatever it was Sam said next.
"Huh?"
"I said to tell him to watch it in the living room, if it disturbs you." That wasn't remotely what Sam had said, but if Dean hadn't heard his original suggestion it was probably for the best.
He pushed open the separate door to the guest room, and hung against it for a moment as Dean stepped in. Everything had been rearranged to cram a single bed in on the opposite side of the room to the double that had been in there originally. There was a tiny smidgen of floor space left in front of the door that went into the former guest room next-door, an old TV in the corner, and various arts and crafts creations of the kids from kindergarden and onward hung about the place. They were all the uglier creations, but no less deserving of wall space in Sam's opinion, and so they stayed out here with the guests where they wouldn't clash with the house's decor.
"I don't know. It's no motel room, Sam."
Sam laughed. "I'm not making you stay here. But hey, if it's not good enough for you you're welcome to tell Lucille you don't like her house..."
Dean shook his head. "Message recieved." He seemed about to say something else, perhaps dismiss Sam so that he could get to unpacking, but instead he found himself just slumping down on the edge of the nearest bed, looking up at his little brother. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he looked at him.
His brother caught him before he could start.
"Whatever you're going to say, cram it. The emotional stuff. You can save it for later."
"What?" When had Sam ever been the kind to turn down a heart to heart? It wasn't like Dean came out with the stuff often. Arriving at the house just...moved him. A whole lot. His brother's life, his brother's family, his brother's happiness. It made Dean feel good. It made him feel accomplished. Sure, he didn't personally have any of those things, but he'd done his job getting Sam through it, kept him alive so he could have a life. Wasn't that the whole point?
"I said we can talk about it later. If you still want to, I mean. Over beers." Sam chewed his lip. "But there's something else I want to talk to you about at the same time."
"I'm not staying--"
"It's not about staying," Sam protested, and there was a sharper edge in his voice now. How often had he asked Dean to stop hunting and just get a normal job, give up the life that put his neck on the line every single time he left the bunker? Dean had wanted freedom and a family for as long as Sam had known him, but now it was like he'd thrown in the towel on that particular dream. Sure, Dean had hit forty, but that was more of a reason for him to quit, not less. When Sam had told him he was turning into Bobby, Dean had just taken it as a compliment.
But it was that old argument. That old disagreement. Bringing it up again was a waste of time and they both knew it. They'd never agree, even if secretly Sam knew that Dean knew that he was right.
"It's not about staying," he repeated, "Or giving up the life, or anything like that." Sam sighed, elaborately. He was already tired of the subject. "We're not going to argue this weekend, alright?"
Dean gave him a look like he didn't believe a word of it. Because he didn't. They argued, it was one of the things that reminded him that Sam was family. And Sam, once upon a time, had liked to argue about the life. It had started with innocuous things like pointing out how good Dean was with John when he was a baby, and what a great dad he'd have made, but Dean had always just looked wistful, like it was something absolutely denied to him, and if he so much as picked out an engagement ring for a girl the world would implode.
Although to be fair, as Dean had pointed out, the last time he'd gotten a girl pregnant his baby daughter had tried to ritually murder him. It wasn't that he didn't want it, he did, it was that life just didn't work out that way for him, and even if it could, Dean couldn't get out of his own way long enough for it to happen.
They stared at each other, at a dead loss for just a moment longer, and then Sam shrugged and turned away. "I'm barbecuing some steaks for lunch in a couple hours, but if you want to eat sooner there's um...the cereal's in the kitchen. Lucille's really proud of it."
-----
Dean dropped into the kitchen not long after that, and found Cas and Lucille sitting at the breakfast bar with a tablet on the counter in front of them. They were browsing through family photos, and Cas was engaged over the whole thing, cooing in the way that Lucille had taught him years ago over pictures of Mary in various tiny outfits, taking her first steps, wearing her first pig tails, and walking out into a babbling brook with one hand in her father's, Sam stooping and laughing. There were whole series of photos that Lucille hadn't put online, and considering that they'd been away for so long this time, there was a lot to catch up on.
Cas looked happy, Dean thought idly, and seeing Cas happy made him happy. It wasn't very often that he smiled, and seeing Sam and Lucille and the kids really did it for him. Dean couldn't help himself, though; he shook off his admiration and turned it to teasing instead.
"Don't be deceived, Luce, Cas thinks all babies are cute."
"They have very large eyes for the size of their heads. What you call cute, nature calls a survival mechanism."
"See? It's all clinical with him."
"That's not true," Castiel answered, and if anything he seemed just a little bit hurt by the accusation. "These are tiny Winchesters. When I look at them I can see the features inherent in your own genetic make up. Mary, for example, has your eyes, Dean."
"They're blue in that photo," Dean said, pointing to it as he came over. He wasn't convinced, and honestly he hadn't been paying much attention to the color of Mary's eyes in their brief meeting. Was it true?
"She's three months old in this picture, the pigmentation has yet to take hold. Here." Castiel swiped through to another picture, much more recent, and lifted it up so Dean could see. Sure enough, the little girl had Dean's green eyes. And his freckles, too.
Castiel was looking at him hard enough that, for just a second, their eyes caught over the photo. The second it happened, both looked away, like it was a rule not to make direct eye contact for too long. Dean coughed, and shoved his hands into his pockets.
"Sam said something about cereal?"
Lucille slipped away from the bar to show Dean the way to the brand new cereal dispensers. Beside them was a dispenser for each of three kinds of dry pasta, and one for brown rice. Castiel, meanwhile, returned to looking through the photos on his own, and after a moment he pushed the tablet back across the counter.
"Your children are beautiful," Castiel said, breathing warmth into his words, and Lucille responded with a sunny smile.
Dean, who thought so too, none the less just rolled his eyes, and sat down beside Cas to chomp on his cereal, pulling the tablet back over so he could take his turn with it. He was very quiet for a long time, and after two minutes of just listening to him crunch down his late breakfast, Lucille started up conversation with Cas again.
"But you're doing more than just following Dean around, aren't you?" she asked. "There must be someone in your life, Castiel."
Dean froze in his chair, missing a single chew, and then pretended not to be listening. Beside him, Castiel squirmed just a little at the inquisition. It was an intimate question, full of depths and corners that in its innocence it couldn't consider, and which Castiel had himself gone forth and back over for years.
"I'm still an angel," he said, taking the easiest way out. "It wouldn't be prudent for me to take a wife."
Lucille frowned at him. "Why?"
Castiel shot a glance across at Dean, who was still doggedly looking through the photos on the tablet with one hand, pretending that there was still cereal left in his bowl by swirling the tip of his spoon in the milk. Castiel's voice faltered, briefly. "Because our offspring wouldn't... We were forbidden, for the sake of Heaven."
"Forbidden," Lucille repeated, and she gave her head a shake that made her long dark hair wave back and forth. "That's so sad."
"None the less," Castiel said, hoping that the words alone would be enough to close the subject.
Dean, however, was not so forgiving. Now that the situation had fell into terse silence, he felt the need to dispel it, and so he leaned over, jabbing Castiel's arm with the handle of his spoon. "It's not like Cas even wants kids. I mean, Claire was more than enough of a handful, right, man? Who'd put themselves through that again?"
Alex and Claire were happily married with twin daughters.
Castiel narrowed his eyes minutely as he looked across at Dean, in a standoff that only the angel seemed to realize that they were having. When it became clear that no good would come of it, he stood, wordlessly, and walked out. Shrugging, Dean poured himself another bowl of cereal.
-----
Dean didn't bother seeking Cas out to find out what the problem was, but later that afternoon they reunited anyway. John and Adam had grabbed the angel at the first opportunity and dragged him out to the back pasture, where a stream wound its way through under a little copse of trees. There, Sam had built them a permanent little camp, so that they could pretend to be frontiersmen in the old west, a task that they took upon themselves with alacrity.
They knotted feathers in his hair while he sat patiently, and then showed him around their camp, before sitting him down by the edge of the stream to demonstrate the mysterious skill of fishing. Castiel didn't point out that there were no fish in the tiny stream, but the boys didn't seem to mind. They "fished" and then ate an imaginary fish dinner together, and then Castiel stood patiently as they practiced their lasso skills on him.
Finally, with Cas tied up, the boys marched him around the field, one pulling on the rope while the other poked him with a long stick. It was all good natured, of course, but that was how Dean found them, the afternoon sun beating down, when he called them in for lunch.
"But we've already eaten," Castiel declared. Apparently, though, the boys didn't count their fish as a meal, because the ropes were all dropped, and a moment later all that was left in their wake was dust as they dashed off across the prairie toward the house.
Before Cas could say another word, Dean picked up the other end of the rope.
"Kinky."
"Dean--"
The warning didn't hold. Dean gave the rope a sharp tug, and Cas almost tripped over his own feet.
"Dean!"
"I'm only messing," Dean chuckled. "So are you a native or a pony?"
"I'm not entirely certain." He sounded resigned, shifting his arms slightly.
Dean clearly wasn't in a hurry to release him, but Cas, in his long suffering way, just stuck with it. Dean wound the rope in, wrapping it around his arm until Cas was mere inches away. For a moment, it seemed like something more might happen. The angel held his breath, and Dean looked down at him squarely, looked into his eyes, looked at his mouth. But the moment fell away into the next, and Dean pulled the rope back over Castiel's head, and slung it across his shoulder.
"Okay, back to the house. There's steaks and hot tomato salad, and if you make me miss out on home-cooked food..."
"I've cooked for you at home before."
"Cas, that's not cooking. What you did with that rice, and the mint leaves--that was not food."
"It's the thought that counts."
"No, man. Not with food. With food it's the food that counts. Lucille knows that. That's why her kids are all as happy as they are; it's the good food. It's the fact that they have a great mom and dad to make it for them."
Dean sobered, and Cas quieted with him, dropping his eyes to their feet. Years later, Dean still hadn't moved past the unhappy truths of his upbringing. It was something that Cas just accepted: Dean would always miss his parents, but especially his mother, miss the life that had never been his to have. They trudged back the rest of the way to the house, quiet, and once there, were embraced by the liveliness of Sam's family once again.
Plates clattered and banged. Sam was out on the patio with the barbecue, draining a bottle of water to replace the gallon that he was sweating in the blistering midday heat. He gave them a wave and kept drinking, before grabbing the marinade and a paintbrush and getting back to work. The children were helping their mother take things outside, establishing a veritable feast of tomato salad, baked potatoes and green leaves, the latter of which Dean scrunched his nose up at when he saw it.
"I'm never going to get over the fact that you feed your kids the same rabbit food junk you used to eat on the road."
"Sure. What is it that doctor said? You have the heart of a man ten years older than you?"
"I fight monsters for a living. That kind of spook is good for your ticker."
"No, it just means you're a heart attack waiting to happen. One of these days you're going to walk round the corner and a ghost is going to come at you, and it won't even have to bother because you'll be on the floor twitching."
Castiel, already seated at the table, maintained a serious tone as he interjected in their argument, rattled by the concept of Dean's mortality. "I'm not about to allow that to happen."
Sam, just briefly, looked apologetic. When he turned back to flip his steaks over, Dean disappeared into the kitchen, leaving him with Castiel--mostly alone, now, but for Mary playing in the sandpit with two dirty looking toy cows.
"You okay, Cas? You seem--" Sam didn't have a word for it, or maybe he didn't want to say whatever the word was out loud. His lips twitched downward as he glanced over.
"I'm...fine." Castiel's reply was a little weary.
"It's just..." Sam took a deep breath. This was awkward. "Luce and I were talking. We think you seem...I don't know. Lonely."
"I have Dean."
"Yeah," Sam pressed. "I had him too, it didn't make it any less... Less."
Castiel didn't say a word. Dean reappeared a moment later, carrying three beers, and made the rounds delivering one to each of them. "It's good getting the family together," he declared, warmly. "We should do this more often."
"Not for lack of trying," Sam answered, glancing up. "And just so you're forewarned, John's already talking about going to college in California."
Dean balked, dropping himself down next to Cas. "What's in California?"
"The ocean, apparently. He learned to surf on our holidays last summer, and now it's all he can talk about. Do not engage!"
John came out carrying a jug of orange juice, followed by Adam with a stack of glasses, and Lucille finally tagged along after, her hair pulled back out of the way. She didn't look at all put upon, but they were all aware from the spread just how much work had gone into preparing the meal.
"This looks wonderful," Castiel finally said, politely, though out of all of them he was the least likely to care how food looked or tasted. He'd eat a little so that Lucille wasn't unsettled, but as past visits had established, he usually spent most of meal times with the youngest child, discussing how celery was truly important and not at all horrible, and they really should try it.
"Yeah," Dean added, harried by a glance from the angel. "You're a fantastic cook. I should have stolen you from Sam when I had the chance."
Sam chuckled. "Hit him for me, Cas."
"Come and hit me yourself," Dean challenged.
Before Lucille could even turn a stormy glare on either of them, Castiel interjected: "I don't believe that violence would be setting a good example. For the children."
"And if I had a chance to take my pick all over again," Lucille cooed, "Maybe I wouldn't pick either." She bent down and pressed a kiss to Castiel's cheek, and Sam and Dean both burst out laughing.
-----
"You don't see it, do you?"
Sam looked hard at Dean. They were sat across from each other, Sam sitting on Cas' bed while his brother stretched out with a beer on his own. Dean had the television on, with the sound at a low burble. It was late, and Lucille was sharing out cookies and warm milk in the kitchen.
"I said I think you're full of it," Dean answered, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling. "It's this lovey-dovey happy-clappy family stuff. You're so happy with all of this that you're convinced everyone else must be miserable if they haven't got it. Cas isn't into it."
"He's lonely."
"He's brooding! It's a look! Lucifer hasn't spoken to him in like...a year? Heaven's getting on fine without him. He's having like...a mid-life crisis or something."
"You know what brooding means, don't you? Broody? Like a hen?"
"Yeah, a bird. Cause that's what he is, he's a bird...person. Not a person person." Dean scoffed. "Either way, all he needs to do is hit a few bars, buy a flash new car, and he'll get over it in no time."
Sam shook his head. Dean missing the point was...typical Dean. But that didn't help to get his point across, either. As the day had gone on, Sam had become more and more aware of the gloom that Castiel was carrying around with him. One day of it was enough for the empathetic Sam to catch wind, but the truth was that if Cas had been walking around like that for the last year or two, he'd at least have expected Dean to notice.
It honestly seemed, though, like Dean was doing it on purpose, the kind of having his head up his ass that had always driven Sam up the wall. It was like he knew, and knew what it was all about, and was intentionally pretending it didn't exist, as though that would make it better.
But Cas wasn't talking, and if Dean wasn't going to crack either then they were at an impasse.
"He's not a person person?" Sam finally asked. It sounded standoffish and clinical. What the hell was going on with them?
"You know what I mean. You know what he's like. He does stuff--" Dean waved his hand. "Says things. Just comes out with it without thinking of the consequences. That's Cas all over."
There was a tension to those words that Sam was certain he wasn't imagining. So Cas had said or done something that had Dean on the defensive. Good to know. It still didn't give him any idea how to crack Dean's head open to get at it.
Still, there was more than one way to fry an egg, and not all of them required the egg's cooperation. He'd get to the bottom of this, just like always, because Sam had always been pretty good at seeing through Dean when stuff was cutting him up; especially when that stuff involved Cas.
That was a good part of what drove Sam up the wall. It wasn't just in retrospect or hindsight that he'd discovered how much Dean needed Cas and vice versa. They only really thrived in each others company. But the love? The honest to goodness orgy of Amorous Love, Erotic Love, Romantic Love and Filial Love? He hadn't seen it until he had distance. Castiel could give him everything he needed, and as far as he could he did, but that was limited by Dean's hardheadedness. They had the kind of potential where it would take a supernova to blow them apart, and neither of them acted on it. Ever.
Lucille had summed it up very nicely, one night in bed, back when she was pregnant with their second son. They were lying there with the covers up, half continuing a conversation from earlier that day. It had remarked on whether or not to make Dean godfather to their next child, as well as the first. It made a certain kind of sense; there was no one like family, and Lucille didn't have any close relatives left. Sam had suggested Cas, almost offhandedly, and it had become a sincere topic of conversation; an angel as godfather, it was sort of a cute image, and besides, it would tie Cas to their family even more than he already was, show him that he belonged, even though everyone had gone their separate ways, and that there would always be a place for him, a part of him, on Earth. That night, she'd looked across at Sam and said:
"And besides, he's going to outlive all of us. It's sort of sad. He's like the dog in that movie."
"That movie?"
"You know, when he watches his owner die of old age, and then spends the rest of his nights sleeping beside his grave."
"Great. Thanks for that adorable image."
"I'm not wrong though, am I? That's what it's like for angels, they literally live forever. It's not even like he can die of being heartsick or whatever. Can he?"
Sam shrugged. "I don't know. But I reckon Dean would go to Heaven. Maybe they can go and live happily ever after up there."
"If anyone deserves it."
They had made Cas godfather after that, obviously, but the question of whether or not there was something there had just gone by the wayside. They'd tried all sorts of matchmaking crap over the years, but it had never materialized in anything much, and now here they were, only now Cas seemed to be genuinely struggling with the dynamic. If Sam believed in anything, it was that Castiel was aching for there to be something more, something else. Sam knew exactly what that was like.
Dean being as dense as a brick of diamonds just didn't help.
"You done interfering?" Dean asked.
"Shh. Do you hear that?"
Sam had heard an odd sound from the other room. It sounded like a voice, low and gravelly. Cas. And then Mary spoke, and Sam smiled to himself. Cas was putting her to bed. A flurry of scuffling and feet indicated that a horde of puppies had scampered into the nursery with them.
"You can put me down now," Mary was saying, and then more precociously: "I can tuck myself in!"
There was a creaking and shuffling, as Mary got into bed, and then Castiel replied, his voice muffled slightly as he spoke into his shirt collar. "Yes, I can see that."
Dean pulled himself forward minutely, so that he could listen harder. Sam was curious too. The magic spell that Cas seemed to cast on their children was something he wanted to know the secret of. They loved him, and there was really no explanation as to why.
"Do you know any stories?" she asked. "Jojo says Uncle Dean knows lots of stories."
"Oh? And what are these stories about?"
"Ghosts!" Mary exclaimed, delighted with herself for remembering the word.
Sam cast Dean an accusatory look, and his brother just shrugged, and gestured that he was trying to listen.
"Um," Cas said, thoughtfully. "Well I don't know that ghosts make for the best kind of bedtime story." Sam could imagine her disappointment. But the angel went on. "I do know a lullaby that you might like. Come on, let's tuck you up properly under here."
More creaking and shuffling. Finally it seemed as though everyone had settled in, even though puppies were still scuttling about this way and that, and Sam and Dean both strained to hear more sound from the room over. When the low, strangely melodic tunelessness finally reached them, they were as surprised as each other.
"--Lay your weary head to rest. Don't you cry no more.
Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion.
I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high--"
It was really fucking adorable. Dean sat in near silence, occasionally taking a deep drink from his bottle and staring holes in the wall. Sam, on the other hand, watched his brother. He'd seen him looking this miserable and lovesick only once before, when Dean had asked the angel in the other room to steal away the woman he loved; erase every memory of his ever being a part of her life. It was a devastated look, and it worried Sam more than he could properly quantify.
What if it had already happened--Some make or break moment that could tear him open or give him a new chance at life, and Dean had already chosen the path of most destruction? Dean was damn good at carrying on and pretending that everything was normal when he's just screwed the pooch emotionally. Was that the strain he was feeling here? It was a strain that was familiar to Sam; the kind where someone had to walk out in order to have some hope of things going back to normal.
Cas wasn't going to walk out though, was he? Or maybe he was. Maybe the signs were there.
Sam stood up. "I'm going to go make sure Lucille's alright putting the boys to bed. They're getting really good at hiding their electronic toys when it comes round to bedtime."
"I've got an EMF in the car if you need it." The joke was halfhearted.
Sam shook his head, and laughed. "I've got it, but thanks. I should have thought of that."
"Yeah well, you've been out of the game. You've gone soft."
"I'll take soft over whatever this is." Sam gestured as he pushed open the door. "Night, Jerk."
"Night, Bitch."
Dean was still staring at the wall as Sam left.
-----
Nights were no longer always spent in each others arms. They'd been passionate lovers in the beginning, it was true - they had three kids, after all, those had all come from somewhere - but raising a family had mellowed them out. Maybe it was the sheer exhaustion of a day spent babysitting not only their own children but the adult manchildren that they both called family. Maybe.
Maybe not. It could be that they were just getting too old to keep up.
In any case, tonight was a night of snuggling, a night of remembering what they each meant to the other, through dealing with their own contact with the most dysfunctional couple in the world. It was easy to be grateful for what they had in the face of Castiel and Dean's unhappiness. Lucille pressed in close against his neck. Sam had an arm around her, protectively, his nose pressed into her hair. She smelled like coconut hair shampoo.
"How did we get so lucky?" she finally murmured.
"Most people do, don't they? I mean...most people eventually learn how to get out of their own way."
"But not Dean?"
"You've met him, right? He's like a hall of mirrors. He shows you a thousand versions of the same thing, and none of them are real."
"He's sad."
"He's always been sad." Sam sighed, and slowly uncoiled one of his arms, sinking down onto his back. "By the time I worked that out, it was already too late to let him know he didn't have to fake it with me. He faked it his whole life because of me, because he thought I needed him to."
He was exasperated with it, but Lucille knew him well. In their years of marriage, Sam had told her many things, and this was probably just another repeat performance. Talking about his brother's many issues.
"He raised me," Sam continued. "Protected me like it was his duty. Hunted cause it was what we were taught to do. He doesn't know how to be anything else. He's sad because if not for me, this was everything he could have wanted, and he doesn't know how any more.
"He's got scars, Luce. He drinks."
"That's what the life does to you," she answered, softly. The life. A well worn concept, from which they had both mercifully escaped. She sat up slightly, so that she could look Sam in the eye. "You don't even worry about him when he's gone."
Sam shook his head. "I'm numb to it."
"No," she admonished. "He's your big brother. You think he's invincible."
Sam was forced to concede the point. There was some truth in that, even considering how many times he'd watched Dean die. "Doesn't make him any less of an idiot. He's upset Cas, you know."
"How can you tell?"
"I don't know. I mean. Cas has always been sort of...different levels of the same thing. But he just seems... I don't know. Despondent, I guess. Absent. Unhappy."
Lucille agreed. "I mean... I don't know him as well as you, Sam, but... He looks like someone's killed his dream."
"He's really hurting," Sam sighed.
Lucille stroked his cheeks. "You're worried about him."
"Both of them. I'm worried for Cas cause I want him to be happy, and Dean cause I don't want him to be alone. And if they screw this up..."
"They need people who love them, Sam. Like you and me."
"They both have someone like that."
Sam had thought it was obvious, but Lucille just blinked at him.
"Each other? They have each other."
"But not romantically," she answered, like she was laughing off a good joke.
"Yes. No. You seriously..." Sam pushed himself up on his elbows slightly. "You seriously don't see it?"
"You know them better than I do."
Sam slumped back down. Seriously? Was he the only one who could see what was going on here? Or was he just imagining things? He was sure they'd talked about this before, too, but maybe the subtext of the conversation had always remained exactly that.
"You said he was like that dog," he answered, cracking his eye open again. "All this time I thought you and I were both talking about how Cas loves Dean, and I thought we were speaking the same language."
"You told me Castiel was married that one time, and about the demon...Meg? And your brother is straight like a hand of poker. Like...if he died, and you put him in the ground, he'd stand up like a flag pole. He's that straight: dead straight."
Sam blinked, slowly, and then he sank back down, thinking about everything. All the years he'd put up with the pair of them, all the long looks, the way Dean cared about Cas no matter what happened, the fact that they were more like an old married couple than Sam and Dean had ever been... But she wasn't wrong. Neither of them had ever shown very much interest in men, although in Castiel's case Sam had to believe that the opportunity had just never come up.
Eventually, though, Sam just shrugged.
"I don't know. I don't think they do either, that's the thing. Maybe being guys just doesn't come into it. Maybe they just love each other, and that stuff doesn't matter. Maybe I'd love you even if you were a guy."
"Mm," Lucille hummed, thoughtfully. "You think if I was a guy I could still do that thing with my tongue?"
"Oh..." Sam licked his lips, glancing down. Lucille's steady eyes fixed on him. It was hot as hell. "I don't know. Yeah, sure, why not."
"Then you'd definitely still have fallen in love with me."
"I didn't just fall in love with your mouth," Sam protested, pushing himself back onto his elbows. "There were other things."
"My right hook?"
"Also pretty good. You were also really good at pool."
"I was pretty good at handling balls..."
Maybe he wasn't so tired after all. Or too old. He'd never be too old to enjoy this.
-----
The next day was Sam's birthday. Sam quickly understood that some kind of unspoken arrangement to get Dean and Cas together had come about out of his aborted late night cuddle session with Lucille. Breakfast got very awkward, very fast.
Dean was sleeping in, as he'd done since the beginning of time. Cas sat at the breakfast table with all the kids, whom he'd helped get up and dressed. He'd assisted in the preparations for breakfast, and he'd even fetched maple syrup from Canada for the pancakes. Not by flying, obviously--Cas and Dean had worked a case in Moose Jaw last year, and Dean, remembering that pancakes were a specialty in his brother's house, had insisted on picking up a giant bottle shaped like a moose. Puppies were chewing on misshapen pancake pieces under the table.
When they were all sat round the table, the questions started--innocently enough.
"So, Cas. Is it true what they say, about angels not really being male or female?"
Castiel frowned. "In some ways. In others...we were made, and named, with an inherent sentiment of masculine and feminine. I have always been a he, while Anna, for example, had always been a she."
"And the bodies you possess...they have to match? You couldn't just, I don't know, take a walk and come back with lady parts?"
Sam missed his mouth with his fork, and smashed syrup against his cheek.
"Even if I could," Castiel answered, bravely, "It would be an insult to the sacrifices made by the Novak family. I would never wish that another family endure that kind of tragedy on my account; not for the most selfish, nor the most noble of reasons."
The questions stopped there for a little while. Conversation drifted to how weird it would be if Castiel was wearing a face other than the one he had. Adam stated that since Cas was an angel, all he'd have to do was wish he was a woman and Heaven would magic him that way. The six year old used the word "boobs", which Sam laughed about and then sheepishly admonished his youngest son for, when his wife cast him a withering glance.
"But you taught John that word," Adam complained, pitifully, and Sam quickly excused himself to warm up some more syrup.
As they cleared up after breakfast, and Sam took to playing chutes and ladders, while bouncing Mary on his knee, more conversation continued to drift their way. Cas was washing up while Lucille chatted to him. When Cas cleaned the dishes they was never a single speck left on them.
"So you must think it strange, then," she said, in her lower voice, a tone meant to register conversation between two adults, "that we have such hangups about gender and sex."
Castiel paused. He was wearing rubber gloves, and for a moment he just held a single plate in front of him, staring past it. Maybe he was onto them. It wasn't like Lucille was being very subtle about it.
"I understand that you think it matters. And that it can be...motivating, in good and bad ways."
"Motivating?"
"Into acts of great generosity, or acts of great prejudice."
"Oh." A long pause, the clanking of plates. Sam slid down a chute. "Do you think it matters?"
"No. I don't see what the presence of genitals - of one type or another, or indeed any at all - should bring to bear on how you feel or don't feel about another person. Love, as I was introduced to it, exists boundlessly. It is undefinable. It is intangible. And yet without it, no species on Earth would thrive."
"Then love is about reproduction?"
"Mating is about reproduction. Canids couple only briefly. Despite human efforts to dress them up and force monogamy on them, you could hardly claim that they mate for love."
Sam chuckled loud enough for them both to glance in his direction, and then Castiel continued.
"But the love, the bond of affection and reciprocal devotion that a wolf has for the other members of its pack--that goes beyond reproduction. It is the very building block of survival."
"But that's not love. It's instinct."
"Define instinct."
"Something you just have to do. A feeling that just...that's part of who you are. You can't help but act on it. It keeps you alive."
"Like love."
Lucille went very quiet. When Sam glanced up, she was looking over at him and Mary like she was seeing her husband for the first time all over again. Cas was looking at her with a different kind of intensity. When their eyes met, she looked back at Castiel. Sam couldn't see her expression, but he could hear it in the tone of her voice. It was something like pity.
"And do angels love?"
"We were told that we loved our Father, so we did. But real love... It isn't the same thing at all."
"You know that for sure?"
Cas was silent. He kept clinking with the washing up. Lucille brushed his shoulder with one of her hands, and bent a little closer to him. She must have whispered something, because Cas looked back up a moment later, and he looked stricken.
Sam pulled himself out of his chair, and came over toward them.
"Hey, you're not supposed to have so much fun washing up, you know. It's meant to be a chore."
Whatever Cas was feeling, he bounced right out of it within a moment, shaking his head at Sam. "I like being useful."
"You're a suck up. And you--" he elbowed Lucille in the ribs, "--you're just as bad. He's an angel of the lord, not a cyborg slave."
"Are you sure those aren't the same thing?" she asked, teasing.
"I have sometimes wondered," Castiel remarked, getting in on the game.
-----
By lunchtime, Dean was up and about, and plans for the family picnic began to take shape. Dean grabbed a beer from the cooler, as was his habit, and slumped down on the sun lounger to watch.
"It's my birthday," Sam groused to his wife. "Why can't I do that?"
"Because you don't drink before the sun goes down."
Dean rolled his eyes at them. "What sort of rule is that?"
Sam scoffed, and carried the cold box out to the car. It was a lifelong defense mechanism against what he saw as one of Dean's most harmful habits. One of them. As contemptuous as he was of his brother's eating habits, for example, hunting was still more dangerous. There was no point cracking that one if he never quit the other.
Soon, though, the people carrier Sam owned was packed with things, two small child bikes strapped to the back, and a big plastic dinghy laid across the roof, upside down. The kids were crammed in, with all the picnic things, oars, and fishing equipment, the end result being that what was quite a spacious vehicle was suddenly tight as a sardine can. Sam grimaced as he climbed into the driver's seat, and tried and failed to make room for his legs, the seat jamming on the cooler. Rather than rearrange things, he yielded the driver's side to the much more petite Lucille, and slipped into the more spacious passenger seat instead.
"You sure you don't want to go with your brother?"
"You want this to be my last birthday?" Sam asked under his breath, buckling the seat belt into place, and then reaching out to pat the airbag in front of him.
-----
Across the yard, Cas was climbing back into the Impala with Dean. The angel had hoped that this trip would sort out the issues festering between them, brighten his friend's mood, but if anything Dean seemed more uncomfortable now than before. Last night, Dean had been agonizingly quiet. He'd drunk in silence for an hour, watched porn on his laptop with headphones on, and then turned in early without even saying goodnight, clicking off the lights and leaving the angel sitting in the dark.
Now, the silence was back, and it was - if anything - more uncomfortable that it had been directly after That Talk, months ago. The topic had seemed so important to Cas at the time, and while everything had been unsettled briefly afterwards, now Dean made out that he'd forgotten, or that Cas had given up on the idea. That was how Dean responded to threats to the monotonic simplicity of his self destructive lifestyle--by going back to work and pretending that not talking about it would make it go away.
Perhaps Dean was only pretending that he didn't see it. Sometimes, when they looked at each other, Castiel thought he looked hurt, or perhaps young and helpless. Sometimes he just seemed angry. He wished he could read the man better than he did, but after years, he'd tried to stop assuming what Dean wanted from him. He'd been corrected often enough, once it was already too late.
But this? Castiel knew he couldn't carry on like this, and he'd said so. That admission had consequences. Coming here was supposed to be an effort at reminding Dean that he had family, that he was loved, and even if Castiel left, he'd come back for things like this. For birthdays, for friendship--he wasn't abandoning them.
The truth was, he just couldn't indulge Dean any more. They were both lonely, and tired, and Cas couldn't face pulling Dean back from the edge more and more often, the bad habits that consumed him because the angel on his shoulder would make it all alright if he went too far.
They sat in silence most of the way there. It would have been preferable if it stayed that way.
"You know it's bullshit, don't you?"
Castiel tipped his head up, blinking at him. He waited for Dean to continue speaking, and when he didn't, he asked "What is?"
"That crap about angels being forbidden to have kids."
"We are."
"Uh huh. And when's that ever stopped you? You're a rebel. The boss of Heaven now is the ultimate rebel. Who, exactly, is going to come out and say that you can't be a father, if that's what you want. Or a mother. I don't know."
"Any child of mine would be in lifelong peril, Dean. I would not choose to inflict that on anyone, least of all an infant."
"Oh that's--that's crap, Cas, and you know it."
"How is it 'crap'?"
"It's crap. Sam had to ask himself that question too, and now look at him. He's happy, he has a family and shit. It's crap. So your kid would be half angel, would be hunted by Heaven and Hell or whatever--big deal. It's nothing you haven't faced down before."
Castiel shook his head. "It's a moot point, in any case. I don't intend to take a wife."
They sat in silence a little longer. Cas stared out the window.
"I don't get you. You're lonely, but you don't hook up with anyone. It's not that hard, Cas. You find a girl you can talk to, someone who likes you too, and you spend the rest of your lives together. Or better yet, you just spend the night together and get all this out of your system."
Dean waved his hand in a big, wide circle, as though to encompass the conversation that they were having.
"Is that what you want?" Castiel asked, dully.
Dean shrugged, and turned his face back to the road. "I guess. I'm just sick of you moping about it. It's not even like you're aging, or whatever, you look just as pretty as you did ten years ago." A long pause, as they took a corner. "It's not like our lives are that bad, Cas. Saving people, hunting things--that's what we do."
Castiel sank back into the chair. His eyes swam to the window, or perhaps to his own hollow reflection in the glass. Out beyond it, they were passing a scar seared into the earth, the husks of mobile homes and cars upended by a tornado and left laying every which way around the single line that it had carved across the trailer park.
No, their lives weren't that bad. But watching Dean age, knowing that with the way he treated his body, his years were coming to a close--that was something that Castiel couldn't bear. A tornado did its work in seconds, but Cas was watching Dean poison himself to death, with alcohol and with loneliness, and while he loved him, while he would go anywhere with him, do anything for him, watching him tumble down that path, knowing that he could have more, be like Sam, if he only...
If he only what? If he didn't have Castiel as a crutch, perhaps, supporting his weight. Dean should have found someone by now, someone else since Lisa, and Cas had believed, briefly, that it might even be him. Instead, he'd held Dean back, like training wheels dragging in the mud. He'd kept him from finding his own feet, supporting his own weight, creating a future that was down to earth and forced him to exist again upon it.
Castiel just wanted him to be happy, and Dean was not happy. Castiel wasn't happy either. Everything had rotted out, and if nothing changed, it would destroy them both.
As usual, Dean was missing the point.
The picnic site was crowded. It was a warm May afternoon, a Saturday, and the sun was shining down on Milford lake, light dancing over the water. Little sail boats danced about in the breeze, and a number of families filled the strip of grass that ran along the edge of the lake, separated from the brush behind it. Since they were celebrating Sam's birthday here, the family had reserved one of the picnic shelters, and Sam had parked up beside it, already half unpacked when the Impala growled a slow path across the gravel. Every time a pebble pinged against the paintwork, Dean flinched, squeezing the steering wheel a little tighter.
"It's okay, Baby. We're close enough, I promise."
A hundred yards from the shelter, Dean gave up, pulling to a crunchy stop under a tree and scoping out around the bottom of the car to ensure that the paintwork was still intact.
"What took you so long?" Sam asked, as he emerged from the shelter a moment later.
"We stopped for supplies," Castiel answered, nodding toward the back seat as Sam sprinted over. Two six packs of beer sat there, perspiring gently on the leather seat.
Gamely, Sam raised his eyes toward Dean, clapping his hands on his hips. "There's beer in the cooler."
"Nothing wrong with more beer," Dean answered, and swung open the door. They decamped back to the shelter together.
-----
After their pancake breakfast, the kids were full of energy, and they made it obvious to the adults. Every possible toy was dragged down off the car and out of it, juice boxes were drank and abandoned in the dirt, boats were launched into the water and then five minutes later abandoned. Eventually the squealing children ran off further down the lakefront with their mother and father lagging behind them, introducing themselves to all of the other children brought out to enjoy the blue sky and bluer water.
Castiel and Dean found themselves alone again, Dean kicked up along the full length of one of the benches with a kid's cowboy hat tipped over his face, and Castiel tidying things up while everyone else was away. Toys went into a neat pile so that they didn't get lost, juice boxes went into the trash, everything was straightened just a little, and then a little more, until suddenly Dean was reaching out across his path, stopping him dead in his tracks.
The hat was nudged out of his face before he spoke. "Could you maybe quit...buzzing around."
"I'm not buzzing--"
A voice interrupted from the corner of the shelter, female, soft, but intruding on their argument none the less.
"Hey. I um. I'm sorry to ask but, um..."
Dean sat up, of course, welcoming the female distraction. She was maybe twenty-three, blonde, he figured at more than twice her age he naturally had a shot. Of course he did. It wasn't like he was out of the game yet.
"You need help with something?" he asked, quickly shoving the tiny cowboy hat away.
"Uh, yeah." She cocked her hip, and her eyes lingered on Castiel for a moment, before flicking back. "It's just that we've tried everything and we can't get the barbecue started."
"We'll come and help," Castiel said, cutting Dean off. "Won't we, Dean?"
"Sure, definitely. Just being neighborly."
The problem with the barbecue was easy to fix, simply the case of an ill fitting gas supply. Soon enough, Aurelie and Shay, Bruce and Eddie were laughing along to jokes that Dean was telling them, stories about getting drunk in Minnesota before they were even born. Aurelie, the blonde girl who had dropped in on them to ask for help, laughed a little less than the others. She was admiring Castiel, her eyes hanging on him for long enough that she missed some of the punchlines.
After half an hour, Sam and Lucille made it back to their shelter, exhausted children in tow, and Castiel bid farewell to their new friends and head back. Dean took longer, spending some time getting to know Aurelie a little better. She had caught his eye, and considering the happy supply of beer and bonding that was going on, returning to his family wasn't at the top of his priority list.
At least not until their dinner was almost ready, the scent of it wafting across nearly the entire lakeside. Then, Dean appeared almost instantly, looking bright eyed and eager, apologizing for abandoning Sam on his birthday, but "you know how it is, man."
Sam shook his head, and turned his attention to serving out steaks to everyone but Cas and Mary.
"We brought all this fishing gear here, the least you boys can do is fish," Sam complained. "And to think I paid good money for these steaks when there's an abundance of natural resources all around us."
John scrunched his nose up. "So why don't you catch something then? You's supposed to be amazing hunters, but I've never even seen you shoot a deer."
"Right," Dean said. "Cause he'd waste good venison on you. You don't think he eats rabbit food all the time, right? Secret midnight venison burgers, that's his secret. That's how you get as tall and strong as he is. All this green stuff--eugh." Dean gestured to the table, which was doused in salad leaves of every kind, egg salad, potato salad, rice and beans. It was far from being a birthday feast in his opinion. A birthday feast would be... Well, pie. Lots of pie.
"Green is good for you."
"And orange," Mary piped in, from her place in her mother's lap. She was dipping carrot sticks in different colored dips and occasionally turning up her nose and tossing the stick onto the table, splatting garlic paste everywhere.
"And yellow," called Adam, eager to join the game.
Dean shook his head and glanced at Sam. "You've brainwashed them. They're veggies."
Sam chuckled. "Hey. You push out some sprogs and you can teach them to eat all the burgers and pie you like."
"Excuse me? Who did all the pushing?"
Everyone looked at Lucille. Sam laughed awkwardly, Dean grinned like a schoolboy. Castiel was nowhere to be seen.
-----
Nobody actually noticed Cas was gone until the kids began to get restless. As the non-eater in the family, Castiel was the go-to for childminder distractions while the adults tidied up the enormous mess left behind in the wake of a family meal. There were leftovers to re-tupper into the ware, and a collection of abandoned green, orange and yellow things that had tumbled "accidentally" onto the concrete under the table, some of them leaving behind streaks of humus.
It was an all hands on deck sort of thing. Except that Cas was nowhere to be seen, so Dean had to take over his duties for him. Leaving Mary with Sam and Lucille, he hurried John and Adam down to the lakeside and showed them how to attach a wriggling worm to their hook, a task that they took to with all the expected monstrous eagerness of two small boys.
By the time Sam took over for him, Cas still hadn't made an appearance, and Dean was starting to worry. He stomped his way back to the shelter, then popped in next door, where Bruce and Eddie were necking tequila and pouring salt on each other, the girls nowhere to be seen. Then Dean made his way along the lakefront, expecting to find Cas collecting pebbles or dried out clam shells, or chasing dragonflies.
It didn't even occur to him until he saw the back door of the Impala part-way open that Cas might have gone back to fetch something from the car. Dean took his time trotting over, full of beer and steak and anxiety, and so he was still a dozen yards away when Aurelie emerged from the back, twitching up the back of her bikini bottoms and saying something like "That's really too bad" or "Not too bad" or...
Or something else entirely. Dean didn't hear it, really. He saw red, and all he actually heard was a sound like electricity being beaten to death by fire, accompanied by a water orchestra and the thunderous beating of his heart inside his brain. He heard pure rage, swelled with bitterness and drink-swollen jealousy, and after that...
Things happened in frighteningly quick succession. Aurelie was shoved aside, and Castiel was dragged out of the car by his ankle, in nothing but his underwear. Dean shoved him against the side of the car hard enough to crack the passenger side window, and then he drew back his right hand and punched him hard across the mouth. He climbed into the car, shoved our all of Castiel's clothes except for his right shoe, pulled himself into the driver's seat, and took off with a skid of pebbles that had Cas covering his face with his hands as Dean peeled away.
-----
He didn't cool off until he was thirty miles away and counting, when he veered into a gas station and swung the door closed with a resounding slam behind him.
"Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck." Fists slammed against the roof of the car. "Fuck. What the hell is wrong with me? What the hell is wrong with you, Dean?"
Dean paced away and came back, thumped the top of the car again. A nervous gas station attendant peered out the window at him, and Dean only hit the car once more before filling her up. He paid with his phone, slid back into the driver's side and backed the car up, and only when he was ten minutes further down the road, far away from any building, and passer by, any overzealous police officer, Dean stopped again, got out, and laid waste to as many invisible monsters as he could. He stomped around and kicked at the dirt on the side of the road, screamed at himself, at Cas, at this whole stupid trip.
It was unfair. It was unfair! Why? Cause of the chick, obviously. Castiel knew better than to poach tail-feathers. Yes, that was absolutely it. He was jealous of the pretty girl, and angry that after all these years Cas had to choose now to do it, had to choose the back of his car, on Sam's freaking birthday, to start making out with the opposite gender like a horny teenager.
Why was this happening to him? Had he wronged God? ...Again? Hadn't he been a good friend, a good wing man? Sure, he'd given Cas that talk about finding a girl, but he wasn't supposed to find the first girl and go with her. That wasn't how it was supposed to go.
So how was it supposed to go? What had Cas done wrong, exactly? Sure, he'd broken the bro code, but when had Dean gone to extra efforts to teach him that code? And when would it have ever involved "Don't sleep with a girl I'm flirting with"? It wasn't like that had ever been a threat before. It had never even come up on the radar of possibilities.
But this had never happened before. Dean didn't have a precedent for it, didn't have any reason to imagine that today would be the day when Castiel suddenly flipped on him, changed into another person entirely. Sure, he'd given him that advice about finding a girl, but it was a joke, right? It wasn't like Cas had ever taken any of his advice about sleeping around before. In fact, he'd endured a whole hell of a lot of Dean's hookups without even saying a word.
Why now, and why did it piss him off as much as it did? Why? Cas had got some, it was supposed to be some kind of victory for him, a right of passage.
So why did it feel like Dean had been betrayed? And why did betrayal feel so much like guilt?
Dean dropped back onto the ground, sinking into the shadow that the Impala cast on the steaming hot asphalt. It wasn't enough to burn, but Dean still jerked his hands away from the ground, pulled them into his lap instead. He thumped his head back against the panel behind him. Baby was hot as well, but Dean pretended not to notice.
The more he thought about it, the worse the guilt felt. Stillness was his enemy, allowed the vacant expanse of his mind to fill up with twisting truths. Dean wasn't made to stay still; he thought too much when he was still. He knew how he felt about Castiel. He knew that he was afraid of what it meant. Hang ups that were born out of his upbringing swung trepidacious over him like the Sword of Damocles, looming the second his mind wandered.
He loved Cas. He had no idea what he'd do without him. He had no idea what to do with him, either. But the idea of Cas being gone filled him with dread. He tried to brush him off, tried to get him doing something else because he couldn't face his own crap. He couldn't deal with the slightest implication that he might be anything but straight, even from his own subconscious, and God only knew his subconscious had had a real good try at implying otherwise in the past.
Dean raised his hands up, dropped his face into them, and kneaded at his temples, like he could force the thoughts out of them, or at least force them to take the shape he wanted. He was scared, and hurt. He felt broken, or at least not entirely whole. Was that fair? Cas had dropped his pants for some girl, but it wasn't like Dean hadn't done the same to him time and again, told Cas not to wait up and then just not come back to their room, or asked him to wait in the bathroom while he rolled around with the barmaid. Why was this any different?
Why had he done those things to Cas?
The thought slipped in unbidden, and Dean felt his stomach lurch with fresh guilt. He'd been so bound up in his own twisted problems, he hadn't even stopped to consider how Cas must be feeling, and now that the idea had occurred to him, Dean couldn't get it out of his head. He wasn't blind, he saw the way Cas looked at him, in that low, longing way that he just couldn't reciprocate. Cas would have gone to the carpet for him, and had on several occasions. Cas loved him like... Well, there wasn't really anything else like it, was there? It was crazy mythological, an angel giving up his place in Heaven, giving up his wings, because he wanted to be with Dean. It was some sickly sweet unrequited love thing, emphasis on the unrequited. Cas had pulled him out of Hell, and Dean couldn't even acknowledge even a fraction of what the angel meant to him.
He knew love. He knew what it meant. It meant heartache. It meant misery. It meant loss. Everyone Dean had ever cared about either left him or died, and it had set in really early. He wasn't supposed to be happy. Case in point, Sam had left him. Case in point, Cas was breaking away from him now.
Or maybe...maybe the reason why Cas had slept with that girl was because he was trying to fix it, trying to seek approval. He was just doing what Dean had suggested, after all.
Fuck. How could he mess everything up so badly? What was wrong with him? Why couldn't other people just be happy with the same things that made him happy? With the road, and the meaningless sex, and getting drunk enough that nothing hurt any more? Why did he have to be the one who changed, and the one who felt guilty?
No, that wasn't fair. He had asked Cas to change; Cas who had based his whole being around the hybrid invention that Dean had made him into. Castiel, for all his flaws, was exactly who Dean had constructed; a brother replacement. Dean kept him at arm's length because anything else felt awkward, and the excuse of personal space kept his boundaries high, stopped anyone from getting in and hurting him. Calling Castiel "brother" let him have a little more freedom, let him find comfort without having to fear that it would ever be called something else. You didn't fuck your brother, after all.
But Cas wasn't his brother. Castiel wasn't a thing. Cas was his best friend, the only person who could put up with his crap any more, and someone who - despite all the ways that Dean had fucked up for almost two decades - loved him irregardless. He'd never outright said it, but it was there. It had always been there. Dean could deny it all he liked but Castiel's love for him was like a goddamned mountain. It'd take billions of years to grind it down to dust, and neither of them had that long.
He'd fucked up, hadn't he? This time, he'd really gone and screwed the pooch. Admitting that to himself didn't mean he had the answers, either. It didn't mean he had the courage to go back and make Cas stay. That love, that he hadn't ever reciprocated loomed like a spectre, and all Dean needed to do was go back and lay his mouth on Cas', right? It was really that simple.
So why did the thought of doing that fill him with utter terror? Hell, he'd cranked up Rock of Ages and rolled Baby between two dueling archangels and felt less afraid than he did now. Why was this such a big deal? Surely not just because John wouldn't approve, John, who had been dead for longer than Dean had even known Cas? John, who would most definitely have condemned angels as just more of the same crap, another facet in the shitshow that had ripped his wife away from him. Dean didn't know why the ghost of his father's prejudices still weighed so heavily on him, but it was there none the less. It influenced his approach to this.
The loss, then. That was a big deal as well. But what was he exposing himself to that wouldn't still be dealing him a vicious blow if he were to lose Cas now? The loss would still carve him just as deeply, and Cas hadn't failed him yet; hadn't left. It was a shit excuse.
Was it really just fear that was stopping him, or was it something else? Was it, maybe, that Dean didn't feel as though he deserved to be loved?
Was he that freaking pathetic?
Another car passed by on the lonely road, slowing down as it swung out past the Impala. Brakes squeaked as they were applied, and it hit the side of the road, tail lights blazing red before they clicked off. A woman slid out of the driver's side. She was cute, denim shorts, plaid shirt, brown hair pulled back into a pony tail, sticks of straw stuck in the ends of it. Square bales sat in the back of the dirty flatbed she was driving, an antique in its own right.
If Dean were feeling himself, he'd have seen opportunity. Right this second, all he wanted was to be left alone, but instead he dragged himself up to his feet as she came over.
"Nice car," she chirped. Kansas accent, warm and familiar. The old Dean would have swooned, but now he just felt heartsick.
"She's okay," he answered, meekly.
"She quit on you?"
"No." Oh yeah, he was feeling really talkative.
"So you're just...sat here on the side of the road in all this heat because you're..."
Dean didn't have a good answer for that. He squinted instead, and his nose scrunched up slightly. He was sulking. He was soul searching. He was... He didn't know. There were no good reasons.
"I'm not a serial killer," he said, after a second, and then - having realized how it sounded - he looked up at her. "I uh. I mean, obviously a serial killer would say that too, but. I. Shit. I don't know." Dean looked into the front seat of his car, trying to think of the right thing to say. "I just needed to pull over and think. Here seemed as good a place as any."
She narrowed her eyes at him minutely, clearly not entirely sure about his answer. Somehow bringing up the possibility that he might be a serial killer hadn't charmed him to her one bit.
"Look, there's no way a serial killer would drive an Impala," Dean said, desperately. Think. Why not? "She growls. And she squeaks. Listen."
He pulled the driver's side door open, and it squealed like a dying animal. "She's never been right since we got sideswiped by that truck; the doors don't fit anywhere near as snug as they used to."
"Alright," she said. "Not a serial killer. But um... Maybe if you're done thinking? You got some place to go?"
"I've got somewhere, yeah." Dean sighed. "Somewhere I should get back to."
Maybe something flashed in his eyes, cause she just smiled at him sadly, leaning back against the tailgate of her truck. "Somewhere, or someone?"
Dean shook his head. "Guess it's complicated." Why was he telling a stranger about this?
"It's always complicated, honey. If it wasn't, there wouldn't be any challenge. You're from around here, right? Kansas?"
"Kansas," Dean agreed. It felt like he was a little bit of everything, but this much was his.
"Then you know. Ad Astra per Aspera."
Dean grit his teeth, raised his eyes toward hers. Oh, he knew alright. He knew, and he hadn't even thought of it, hadn't applied it to his situation. Why would he? But there it was, in his face, inescapable. If he didn't get what he was reaching for, then what sort of Kansan was he?
"Damn it." He spat the words out, and sighed, and rolled his head on his shoulders. "Fine. Fine! I'm going."
Without waiting for another word, he dropped himself into his car, pulled the door shut, and started the engine. The woman - quite possibly the perfect woman, let's be honest - waved pointlessly into his rear view as he pulled wide across the road and head back the way he'd come. He hadn't even caught her name.
-----
By the time Dean got back to the lake, the evening shadows were pulling across the water, bringing with it the chill of an evening in what passed for a Kansas spring, one of those few days that was bone bleaching sunlight all day, only to snap to Winterfell cold as the night closed in. Crickets were making a valiant effort, but in an hour or two they would give way to nothing but the two stroke whir of mosquito engines buzzing about in their hungry clouds.
Sam and Lucille had started packing up the car, but they'd clearly disappeared halfway through, leaving the sliding door of the people carrier wide open. The kids were gone, Castiel was nowhere to be seen, and Dean's hunter senses immediately took over. Fear for his family overtook all his other concerns. Fear that Cas might leave him evaporated into more pressing matters, into visions of a werewolf pack tearing through his niece and nephews while he was off feeling sorry for himself.
He'd never forgive himself if he'd driven away and gotten them all killed. This was it. Dean had fucked up one more time, put himself first, and this was the result.
He was all amped up, grabbing his angel blade and a gun, packing a magazine full of every different kind of bullet he had, ready to storm his way down the beach and kill everything in sight. Revenge was all he was good for now.
...And then he spotted Cas sitting in the front seat of the car.
At once, he was back to feeling how he had before. A cad. A bounder. Guilty all the way down to his rotten, unlovable core. Guiltier now, in fact, because he'd been more than willing to hide away in killing something. At least when he was hunting, he more or less always knew what to do. With this? With this, Dean was lost.
Worst of all, Cas looked utterly dejected, sitting with his head against the passenger side window and staring out the windshield. Dean had never seen him looking so miserable.
He tapped on the glass. A moment later, Cas was pulling the door open to him, if anything looking more and more tragic by the second.
"You're back."
"Yeah. Where's Sam? The kids?"
"They're fine." Castiel's voice had the quality of dry wall. "They made friends with another family."
"Cas..."
"What?"
Dean all but choked on what he was about to say. There was sad accusation in the eyes that were turned on him, and the guilt turned up another hundred degrees. Still, he had to see it through.
"Drive back with me." He couldn't say the words. He couldn't actually say 'let's talk about this', because nothing in the world frightened Dean more than sharing his feelings.
"Dean, there's something you ought to know," Cas began, but Dean cut him off.
"I already know," he said. "I know all about it. So just...let's go, okay? Let's just go. We can go back to the house, have it to ourselves for a bit, I don't know."
"I don't..."
Dean snapped. He didn't know how to deal with the lack of cooperation he was experiencing. He didn't. He was just trying to control the situation, trying to get things on an even keel so that he could expose himself on his own terms. All he wanted was a little cooperation.
"Seriously, Cas, just get in the damn car."
If Castiel might have usually challenged him on his tone, he didn't this time. He got out of the Ford, crossed the crunchy gravel with one shoe on, and climbed into the passenger side of the car, reaching around behind him to recover the abandoned footwear.
Dean squared himself away - he wasn't mad about the girl, that was his own damn fault - and then joined him. When he'd slid into the driver's side, he curled his hands around the wheel, tried to work out how to speak, or if he even could.
Cas waited, because he was patient like that. Cas just waited, not saying a word, and Dean stared a hole in the dash and tried to recollect any single part of the English language.
"Fuck it."
He was always better at actions over words anyway.
Reaching across, Dean curled his fingers against Castiel's jaw and bent in toward him. The angel didn't resist him, as Dean feared he might--feared he might make this moment more difficult and therefore, for Dean, impossible. But Cas was pliant, maybe even surprised, even when their mouths slid together, grazed close and chaste, like leaves and branches brushing idly against each other in a light breeze. That first touch was simply inquisitive, an answer to a question that Dean had been afraid to admit to himself that Cas was asking.
As soon as he answered, Cas filled in all the blanks.
Lips suddenly pressed harder against his own, fingers snaked across and curled in against Dean's hip, under his jacket, earnestly hunting up against muscle and ribs in an effort to get closer. Castiel's urgency surprised him, but then Dean supposed that he must have been thinking about this for a lot longer than he had. Maybe angels didn't dream or fantasize, and as Cas had proven more often than not he failed at creativity, but he had been dreaming of this, there was no doubt. He had been fantasizing about exactly this.
Cas pushed bodily up to meet him. Any closer and he'd have been in his lap, his other hand knotting fingers at the base of Dean's neck, digging fingernails into his scalp. Teeth flashed against his lower lip, and Dean moaned, mouth opening to a sudden assault of tongue, a taste like nothing he'd ever tasted, and a kiss that bordered on the divine. Castiel's mouth was bruising, his tongue never more than a flash against his palate, sometimes writhing against his own, but never staying for more than a second or two, inviting Dean to return the favor. It was as though someone had given Cas a master course in kissing, because hell, Dean had been doing it all his life, and this was still the best he'd ever had.
But maybe Cas wasn't so elegant as all that after all, because an enormous BEEP snapped him right back to the present, as the angel snagged his elbow against the car horn.
They parted, both of them kissed breathless, staring up at each other, and Dean moved his hand just an inch higher, let his rough fingertips press bruises against the hard edge of Castiel's jaw. It didn't matter, ultimately, that he was a man; how close they were superseded that. The hardest part was that he'd thought that it would be awkward just to look at him again in the wake of what they'd done, with a writhing blackness of uncertainty laid ahead of him. Dean didn't know what to do next, what would happen to his life now that he'd done it, and the fear that Castiel would leave him - or worse, leave him right now - was an imposing terror that jumped under his skin the second blue eyes met his own.
Cas must have felt it too, because he smoothed Dean's shoulder with his hand, kneading into the muscle fondly.
"I'm not going anywhere."
It was a breath of comfort. But Dean was magically inclined to disbelieve it. He couldn't help himself.
"You don't know what I'm like, Cas. I could be a neurotic monster. I could--"
Cas pressed the lightest kiss to his mouth, and Dean's eyes closed, his heart swelled, he forgot absolutely what he was trying to say. Slowly, as the space opened out between them again, he reopened his eyes, looking at Cas again, this time with all his fight subsiding.
"What does this make us?"
"Lovers?" Cas answered. His mouth tightened slightly, reopened, and Dean could see how well kissed his lips were, when he did that.
"It's not enough," Dean said, helplessly. "It's not good enough. After everything I've put you through, all I give you is 'lovers'?" He ached with the need to empty the world out at Castiel's feet, the desire to give him everything overwhelming what he actually had to hand over.
"We can be more than that," Cas promised. "Give it time."
"What if I don't have time?"
"Are you planning to die tomorrow?" Cas' expression had pressed into a frown now, and all Dean wanted was to push at his eyebrows, and his jaw, and put that dreamy expression of love back into place.
"No. But that's...that's what this life is. That's what we do." As Dean said it, a different kind of fear prickled in at the edges. He was going to stop hunting. The realization was like a punch to the gut. He knew it, the very moment that he said it. Cas didn't say a word, if he realized it too, but he did bend in, press his nose against Dean's, and sigh against his lips.
"There's always Heaven," Cas told him. "An eternity in Heaven."
It was so bittersweet, so absolutely beautiful, that Dean didn't have a word to say that could be as crystal pure, as utterly perfect as those words. He kissed him again instead, and this time Cas didn't elbow the wheel. It was a tapping at the window that eventually caught his attention.
Dean flushed up to his ears, as Cas leant back and rolled down the window. John stood on the other side, looking nonplussed.
"Dad wants you to go back to the house. He says, um, he's worried he left the door of the chicken pen open."
"The chicken pen?" Dean asked, like he couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"We've had problems with a coyote. It got in and killed six of them last year--or, well, as good as. Dad had to put three of them down. I'm pretty sure he cried."
"He cried, huh? Over chickens. Well that's..." He chanced a look up at Cas, who was still practically in his lap, and his mouth darted into a grin he couldn't hide. "Sounds like Sammy."
Dean sighed, like he was being asked to do something truly dull, and gave Cas the slightest push so that he sank back into the passenger seat.
"Guess I'd better go check on those chickens then. Tell your dad happy birthday from me."
He started the engine.
-----
The drive back to the house was the longest that Cas had ever endured. It was only about twenty miles, but it felt like twenty thousand, the angel barely restrained by his seat belt, wanting to climb across and press his mouth against Dean's again. At one point, he dropped his hand against Dean's knee, but he practically swerved off the road at the contact, so Cas backed wisely off.
There was no denying the glances, though, the way that Dean looked across at him every chance he got, as though to check that he was still there. The drumming of his fingers on the wheel. He didn't turn any music on, which was rare, but the looks between them were loud enough to fill the spaces even so. Conversation didn't happen, at least not in the usual sense, but they were both thinking the same thing, both waiting for the trap to open so that they could run the course.
Cas could feel the buzzing hum underneath his skin, a happy vibration of need and relief. Dean was aroused as well. Cas could smell him, could see the flush against Dean's skin, and it bode well.
When the car finally came to a stop on Sam Winchester's driveway, Cas shifted awkwardly in his seat, plucked loose his seatbelt and glanced at the man beside him.
"Shall I go and check on the chickens?" he asked.
"Cas--" Dean looked at him, severely, and then barked a laugh. "This whole way, you thought we were really coming back to check on the chickens?"
"The coyote--" Cas started.
"When you elbowed the horn, what do you think Sam did, huh? He came running. And he saw us making out in the front of the car like horny teenagers. The lot of them are in this together, Cas. Sam and Lucille, they've been scheming to get us together for, I don't know, years. I only just figured it out, so don't worry about it, I guess. But uh..." He gestured toward the house. "They sent us home so we could get it out of our systems."
"Are you sure?" Cas chewed on his lip. It seemed a bit far fetched. What if there really was something wrong with the chickens?
"I tell you what, let's... Let's go check on them anyway. But if the door's locked, then you're gonna make it up to me."
"How do I do that?"
"You'll work it out."
Together, they circled around the house, head back behind the barn, to where the chicken coop stood. As Dean expected, the trap was tightly shut, the birds all safely tucked away inside.
"See?" he asked, eyebrow raised. "Tucked away safe and sound."
Castiel chewed his lip for a moment, eyeing the coop, and then tipped his head ever so slightly toward Dean. "So this is a set up, then? A trap."
"Yeah." Dean's voice had taken on a gravely note when he hadn't been paying attention. He was looking at Cas like he was a hungry coyote staring down a chicken, something which was not entirely distant from the truth. At least Dean didn't think that Cas was a bird person any more.
"So I suppose I should make it up to you now," Castiel answered, filled with trepidation--trepidation and overwhelming need. He took a step back, and Dean followed, and a moment later Cas was moving into the barn behind the coop, Dean on his heels.
Dean caught him just as they were passing the tractor, wrestling him back against the huge wheel, hard rubber pressed stiflingly against the base of his spine, pinning him by his wrists. Cas surrendered to the eagerness of Dean's mouth, gasping helplessly against the domination of Dean's tongue.
Cas barely resisted this time, surrendering as he was pushed down under Dean's towering need. As his hands were released, Dean pulling against his neck instead to crush their mouths harder together, Castiel wrapped his fingers around Dean's back, urging Dean's hips against his own, and then just holding on as Dean began to grind against him in earnest.
Castiel's head span. He wasn't used to this kind of contact, and his erection strained already, creating an unbearable friction where Dean ground the hard line of his fly against the coarse fabric of his dress pants. He begged out a word against Dean's mouth, and found himself pulled back, released only to tumble altogether into a pile in one of the empty horse stalls. On his back in the hay, some of the pressure was released, Dean kneeling across him instead, kissing him somewhat more gently instead of grinding him into dust.
"Dean--" Cas pushed his hand against Dean's chest, and earned himself an inch. Everything was moving so fast, and he didn't know...he didn't know how any of this worked. He was afraid, certainly, that the second that this was over Dean would regret it, and he dug his fingers into Dean's shoulders to stop him pushing forward again.
"I'm not..." Cas took a breath, tried to work his head around what he wanted to say. It was hard with the distraction between his thighs. "I'm not a one night stand. You aren't going to drive away and leave me in the morning?"
Dean sobered slightly. He smiled, a little sadly. "You think I could do that to you? Like you're just some pick up? Come on, Cas. I know I've... I've been pig headed about this. Stubborn." Cas eyed him suspiciously. "Okay, completely blind--but this is different. I love you."
He loved him? Cas stared up at him, something that clearly made Dean anxious because he shifted back a little further, seated across Castiel's hips. The hunter's face was knotted into a frown, but it just made Dean look skittish. Shy.
"You love me," Cas said, experimentally, put it back out there.
"I guess," Dean answered.
"You guess?" Filling him with confidence, that answer. He knew that Dean was just afraid of repeating it out loud, afraid of airing the words anything but accidentally.
But Dean surprised him. "I love you." The frown lines drifted away, like snow melting, and he closed the space between them, curled his fingers in Castiel's hair, his hands framing his face, wrists curled against his jawline.
"I love you too," Cas answered, equally softly, and with equal intent.
"Enough to blow me?" Dean asked, biting Cas' bottom lip.
"Pardon?"
"I'm joking," Dean answered, with an unsteady laugh.
Cas stared up at him. "You're not joking."
Dean shook his head. "I'm not serious. I want this to be...um... I want it to go right, Cas. I want you to do all kinds of things to me. I want to do all kinds of things to you, too. But it wouldn't be... It wouldn't be right."
"You want it to be perfect."
Clearly the suggestion of aspiring to perfection rattled Dean somewhat, because he grit his teeth. A muscle jumped in his jaw. "I'll settle for just being good enough. I want to..."
He couldn't say the words. If Dean had ever been good at dirty talk - and Cas didn't know if he was or not - it was failing him now. He decided to fill in the blanks for him.
"You want to have sex, to consummate our mutual love for each other in a bond of coupling." Dean already looked uncomfortable, but Cas pressed on. "You want to come inside me, don't you, Dean?"
"Fuck."
"I'll take that as a yes," Cas answered, with a smile. He pulled Dean's mouth back to his own, just for a moment. The swirl of Dean's tongue against his own was lazy, the muscle swollen from Castiel's eager sucking.
When Dean broke back again he was breathless, his pupils dark with lust.
"You're not gonna last that long, are you?"
Castiel rolled his eyes in confusion, and was rewarded for his reaction by Dean suddenly bearing down on his trapped erection, pushing back with his hips. Cas groaned, pushed his head back into the hay. He might have sworn as well, because a moment later Dean was laughing into his ear, a soft, affectionate sound that fell into heavy breathing and the rustle of fabric as one of Dean's hands found its way between them.
Hyper aware of everything, Cas felt clever, eager fingers undoing the button of his fly, felt them peeling back the zip with immense care, before reaching inside to curl around his hypersensitive cock.
"Dean--"
Dean's mouth crushed kisses against his ear. Teeth bruised his throat, however temporary those bruises would be. His hips jerked upward into Dean's effortless grip, completely out of his own personal control. When he moaned - and he did moan - Dean bit down on his throat as though he could capture the sound, making Cas twist and whimper.
Sure enough, within moments that impossible pressure, the steep screaming torrent of arousal that he'd felt overwhelm him only once before, crashed down white hot around his ears. He cried out, thrown agonizingly over the edge as Dean's thumb swirled the delicate tip. His orgasm was completely overwhelming, and as much as he clung to Dean, there was no denying it, no holding back. It was everything he wanted it to be and more, far better than the first time, when he'd been terrified of what was happening to his body.
Now, when the world clicked out of all focus, Cas had a warm, loving body to hold onto, and Dean protected him in return, held him until the shaking subsided.
Dean was there when he opened his eyes again, right above him, watching him quietly. He was stroking circles on his chest with his thumb, avoiding splashes of come that were cooling quickly in the fabric of his shirt. His cock hung flacid and spent between his thighs, swollen pleasantly, cooling in the evening air. And Dean? Dean was smiling the most contented smile that Cas had ever seen him wearing, looking into his face as Castiel worked his mouth, tried and failed to clear his throat, and - closing his eyes for another moment or so - humming his own happiness. He felt good. Dean felt good. Everything was just right.
"You okay, Cas?" Dean finally asked, prompting Castiel to open his eyes again.
"Yeah." A simple word that spoke a depth of meaning. "Thank you."
"You don't have to..." Dean laughed, lightly, openly. "You don't have to thank me for that, Cas."
"It felt like the right thing to do."
Dean shook his head, and kissed him on the mouth. "Whatever you want, okay? You want to thank me for sex then fine, but you--you're gonna be saying thanks a whole hell of a lot."
Through the haze of his afterglow, that sounded amazing. He felt drunk with it. "Sounds good to me."
Dean buried his face in against Castiel's neck, gave him a few more moments, and then started up to his feet, taking Cas with him.
"Where are we going?"
"Into the house, to raid Sam's room."
"Dean wait, just let me--"
He didn't get the chance to put his junk away, at least not until they were standing outside the front door, Dean hunting for the keeper key under the flowerpots.
"Got it."
In they went, and then straight through the house to Sam's room. Dean eyed the place with the eyes of a man well used to hunting for contraband in other people's houses. Cas watched as he dug through first the bedside drawers, and then the top shelf of the closet. He came away with a great big hat box, which he dropped onto the bed before beckoning Cas over.
"Jackpot," Dean exclaimed, pulling back the lid. "Sammy, you naughty boy." He chuckled. "A gold plated cock cage. Seriously."
"Sex toys?" Cas asked, peering down into the box over Dean's shoulder.
Dean pushed a switch aside, and kept rummaging.
"You want to use sex toys on me?" Cas pressed on.
"No. I want you to be comfortable." Dean pulled out a string of anal beads, grimaced and tossed them to the other side of the box, and then, finally, he pulled out a bottle of lube from the bottom of the box. "This is the stuff. You'd think he'd keep it by the bed, but I guess Sam doesn't need it as much any more, huh?"
Cas didn't know what he was implying, so he didn't try to work it out. Instead he cocked his head at Dean, as the box was closed back up and carried back to the shelf.
"You gonna get the rest of those clothes off, then?"
Cas pursed his lips. "This isn't our room."
"It has the best bed in the house. And I'm not going back to the hay, you're still covered in it."
"Which is half the point. We'll make a mess."
"And you'll do your heavenly housekeeping and no one will know any better. Come on, Cas. Sam got us into this. I just want to abuse his hospitality a little."
Dean stripped off his shirt, and crawled up onto the bed, clutching the lube in his right hand. He looked at Cas imploringly, until, finally, the angel surrendered. The coat went to the floor, as did his ruined shirt, his filthy pants, boxers, and his socks. The process wasn't elegant, but by the time he looked back up at Dean, he was laying with his thighs spread open near the headboard, massaging his swollen cock through the denim of his jeans. The sight made Cas' mouth go dry.
"What if I'd prefer to just watch you do it to yourself," Castiel answered, smokily. "You can use some of those things in the box."
Dean didn't even laugh. He was visibly aroused, and impatient. "Shut up and get over here, Cas."
Cas shut up and got over there. As he slid down onto the bed, naked, Dean wrapped his arms around him, pulling him into a kiss that was slick and affectionate, that lingered in all the best places. It didn't insist on taking over, with tongue thrusting into the deepest recesses; instead it asked, and as Castiel offered to deepen the kiss, twin muscles slow danced their passion, teasing the softest moan from the angel's lips. He hadn't recovered yet, but his poor, tortured cock gave a defiant, hopeful little twitch anyway. Dean clearly recognized the noise, because he laughed against Castiel's mouth.
"Yeah, I get it. Remind me to teach you how to ride the edge, okay?"
Castiel had no idea what he was talking about, but he was licking at Dean's mouth even so, trying to urge him back into the languid kiss. It was all he wanted. Dean, on the other hand, was having none of it. His right hand found Castiel's chest, and he pushed him back, firmly.
"Stay."
"Mmm..." Dean dipped between his thighs, jerked his knees up with firm hands and pushed them wide, and Cas bent forward, immediately paying a little more attention. "Dean. Dean! Do you know what you're doing?"
"Little bit."
Cas blinked at him in confusion. "You've done this before?"
"Don't be daft," Dean answered, taken aback by the accusation. "There was a girl. Things got a bit wild. I don't know. It was my second time getting drunk in the city, I thought girls there were just weird, you know. Went with it."
Once again, Castiel had no idea what he was talking about, but he trusted that Dean did, trusted that there was a design behind all this, and Dean didn't just plan to poke at things until it worked. He held his breath, anxiously, so tense and so tight that when one of Dean's fingers - now wet and warm - slipped against the inside of his thigh, he just about jumped clear off the bed in response.
"Easy," Dean breathed. Fingers worked circles into Castiel's hip, as Dean angled himself into view, bent across Cas reassuringly. "I haven't even touched it yet."
Castiel nodded, not that it made it much easier to stay still. It was as foreign a sensation as being touched in front, he decided, except to be quite frank he'd never so much as given a second thought to his ass in the entire time that he'd had one. It didn't do much. He sat on it.
And now Dean was wriggling a finger inside, pressing it past the thick ring of muscle with confidence that was surprising, at least to Cas. He reached his hand out, and Dean bumped his shoulder underneath it, gave him something to hold on to.
"Not too fast?" Dean asked.
Cas shook his head. "You can go faster, if you wish."
"Sure, and see you hop right off the bed and out the door? I don't think so." Dean grinned, and rocked back, Cas' hand chasing him as he bent away, holding onto his bicep as Dean twisted with his wrist. The sensation was overwhelming, sparking nerves that Castiel knew about, but doubted the sensitivity of. It was pleasurable, and yet also almost painful. Most of all, it burned under his skin, a solid presence that promised so much more, as Dean got underway.
Cas was relieved that Dean had chosen this moment to make his move, this moment, when Castiel was still a little lightheaded from his first orgasm, to get his bearings.
It didn't take long before Dean was pressing another finger inside. By then, Castiel had relaxed, although the slackness of his body truly surprised him. Dean pressed in easily, and Castiel tightened his knees around Dean's ribs, squeezing tighter instinctively, trying to create some sort of resistance where before he had considered himself too tight, impossibly so.
"You should see this, Cas," Dean purred, easing back so that his chest bumped against Castiel's knee. "I didn't know it was this easy, but if I had to like any cock, it'd be yours. You're sucking my fingers in."
With the intrusion, Cas hadn't stopped to consider how his cock was filling, but now the tension was unmistakable, looped down across his taut abdomen, coalescing once more in the knot forming inside his testicles. It felt like a knot, at least.
Castiel opened his eyes, which had drifted shut, to find Dean peering down between his legs, obscenely enjoying the show of his fingers filling him. The angel couldn't find the energy to be embarrassed--not given his current condition, splayed wide and exposed.
"Stop teasing me and get on with it," he growled, his throat aching through the vibrations, face twisted forward as it was.
"Another finger?" Dean asked, cocking an eyebrow up toward him. Castiel growled again, and made claws of his fingers, and laughing, Dean finally got the message, pulling his fingers out so quickly that Cas moaned helplessly, bearing down after them desperately.
"Just give me a second, buddy. Just a second."
Castiel dropped his head back, stared up at the spinning ceiling. What could be taking so long? Why wasn't Dean just there with his penis ready to go the second he pulled free. It seemed so casually unreasonable to Castiel, all things considered.
"I'm waiting," he said, a scant split second before Dean climbed back between his legs, pushing his thighs up and slotting his knees underneath. They were bare now, the rough denim from before nowhere to be found, and Cas shuddered as Dean pressed up close, squeezing the head of his shaft against Cas' slick entrance. Dean shivered, visibly, though maybe just from the promise, pleasure that must be rolling through his body just the same as it was through Castiel's.
"You've waited how long for this?" Dean asked. "And yet you're the most impatient patient guy I've ever met."
"I have no idea...what you're saying."
It was true. Cas' mind was whirring electric, and the very idea that Dean wanted his words to be understood seemed ludicrous, given the circumstances. His circuits had all shorted, the very second he felt Dean nudge into position.
"Yeah," Dean said, apologetically. It wasn't much of a warning, might not have been enough for anyone whose body wasn't singing in anticipation the way that Castiel's was.
Heartbeat racing over the surface of his skin, the angel just held on as Dean pushed inside, past all that terrible, squeezing resistance, and into welcoming space beyond. Castiel growled and groaned through the penetration, and as Dean stilled he breathed quickly, sharp breaths in and out that steadily decreased the immense sting as muscle was pulled wider than before.
There were tears biting into the corners of his eyes, as Dean fell still, as he looked down, almost fearfully, without a doubt worried that he'd gone too fast and caused Cas pain. Part of him wanted to tell Dean to pull out and stop, another part wanted him to just stay still until the pain subsided. But Castiel knew it wouldn't feel better until Dean moved, until there was friction, until those nerves all caught on fire under the onslaught. The fingers had felt good, and Dean's cock would feel good as well.
"Move," Cas commanded, and Dean looked worried, and then - hesitantly - obeyed.
The angel bit back an agonized sound, and Dean stopped.
"Just move!" Cas insisted, again. This time Dean didn't slow down, and while Castiel whimpered uncertainly through his fair share of the thrusts, the pain did begin to ebb, just as he suspected it would. Dean curled forward, offered the full expanse of his back for Castiel to wrap his arms around, and he took advantage gratefully, holding on for dear life.
The feel of Dean's engorged cock inside of him. There was nothing like it; it filled all the parts of him that he'd never known existed, seemed to push outward in every possible direction, a relentless pressure which turned into a relentless friction in time with each of Dean's thrusts. The feeling was glorious, and it turned him molten, made him writhe and keen as gradually pain turned into pleasure; more pleasure than Castiel had felt in his life.
If this was what it was like to be fucked in the ass, he thought, then why didn't more people do it? He was almost convinced that Dean would enjoy it too, not that he trusted his ability to convince him.
Dean pulled him up by his shoulders, heaved their bodies forward untidily, and Castiel grunted as his head hit the headboard just a little too hard, a little too high. The new angle, however, was well worth it, with Dean plunging deeper, using the upward thrust of his hips to slam against something that made stars supernova behind his pupils. The tug toward orgasm was incandescent now, though Dean hadn't so much as touched him.
"Oh," Castiel whined. "Oh, oh. Dean. Oh, Dean." The words tumbled together, blurred into nonsensical lines of syllables that lost all meaning. Castiel's head dropped forward, and he stared in abject fascination at precome beading, leaking, from the tip of his cock, his erection absolutely untouched curled up toward his body, bobbing with the force of every thrust. He couldn't see Dean's cock, down the line of his body, yet Cas could see everything but; could see the thick dusting of hair decorating the hard, muscle toned flesh of his pubis, and the space that disappeared between them as Dean drove home thrust into thrust. The sound was intoxicating, and the smell...the smell of their sex, such sultry musk, was enough to blow even an angel's mind.
And blow he did. Castiel's mouth opened wider, incrementally, and he watched, mouth twisting into dismay as orgasm overtook him, once again before Dean. Come spurted, then oozed, his muscles twitching and pulsing with each continued thrust that slammed into him.
Cas moaned. His hands softened against Dean's back, slid down helplessly to just hold onto his hips for dear life. Dean was moving faster now, dropping forward in the wake of Castiel's orgasm to bury his face against Cas' shoulder. It seemed to take forever, went on until it began to hurt, the repetition of it, the ache--and then blissfully, Dean came.
Cas imagined he could feel it better than he could; Dean's cock pulsing inside him, ribbons of hot come painting the inside of his body. It was almost too much. The angel held on, even as it seemed like Dean might pull away, afraid at once than Dean would tear back, suddenly self aware, realizing that he'd made a mistake.
Instead, when he was conscious enough to acknowledge that Cas just didn't want to let him go, Dean helped to negotiate them down onto their sides instead, still wound so tight around each other that Cas wasn't sure where their bodies began or ended. He just wanted to hold on, and Dean let him.
Dean didn't doze. After a few minutes of silence, he peeled away just far enough to look into Cas' face while he stroked his cheek, and the angel cracked his eyes open to look at him, a dazed, happy expression plastered on his face.
"I was gonna ask if that was what you wanted, but..."
Castiel hummed, contentedly. "You don't really have to ask," he finished.
"You're so beautiful, Cas. Right this second. You're beautiful."
"Am I not beautiful usually?"
Dean cuffed him across the eyebrow with his thumb. "You know what I mean. You've got a glow."
"So do you," Castiel answered. His hands had found some strength, and they worked circles in the center of Dean's back. "I haven't seen you look this happy in so long, Dean. I was starting to fear I never would."
"I'm sorry I didn't see it sooner. That's my fault."
"It's no one's fault." Cas sighed. "You lost Sam. You were just trying to...to make sure that things stayed the same."
"Maybe. I don't know. I feel like sometimes I make this stuff more difficult for myself than it should be, like, just out of habit." The slightest pause. "Do you know what the state motto of Kansas is?"
It was a weird question, weirded still conversation to be having while Dean's cock softened, still snug inside him. Of course Castiel didn't know. Ask him what the average flight speed of a bee was and he might have an answer. But this? He didn't even know there was a motto.
"Ad Astra per Aspera."
Castiel's brow knitted. For a moment he stared at Dean, not understanding, and then it clicked, and he shook his head. "It's not inaccurate."
"No, it's really not." Another uncertain pause. Dean was quiet for longer this time, and Castiel could sense that he was troubled. "Did you, uh...did you sleep with that girl?"
Cas shook his head minutely. "I tried. I couldn't And then I talked about you. She wasn't very happy."
Dean chuckled, suddenly lighter with his relief. If his happiness had dulled while he chewed over the question, it was vibrant again now. "Yeah, she didn't look very happy."
The swell of fresh contentment, knowing that he hadn't forced Cas to abscond with some pretty blonde hours before their first time together, settled Dean right down, lifted away any last weight of guilt. Gradually he calmed down, giving in to the exhaustion that came in the wake of wonderful sex. He kissed Castiel's ear, instead, and chewed marks on his throat, and a minute later he was dozing on the pillow, asleep with a very happy Cas impaled beneath him.
-----
By midnight, Dean's entire outlook had changed. The endless road that was his life, just like his trip through Kansas' back roads, had ended with a U-turn. But even given that, he couldn't find himself to be disappointed in it, only miffed with himself that he hadn't put his foot on the brake sooner. Love had seemed like a far off dream, and so Dean had let it go, surrendered to the inevitability that his life would be spent without someone at his side.
Not that it was for lack of trying, at least on the behalf of the women that he met. Any one of them might have been a forever girl, had Dean been another man, if he hadn't been so afraid of what it might mean--not for him, Dean loved being in love, but for her, unused to the dark and twisted creatures that made up Dean's nightmares, and occasionally intruded on his life.
But Castiel didn't have any problem with the monsters in his life, and Cas had been there during most of the worst of it. Cas had been there when he'd given up on love. He'd been there when they'd faced down Purgatory. He'd even been right there when Sam had been on the verge of dying, even if it was completely unknowingly; they were drawn back together even then. Castiel had been there when Dean had thought that he would spend an eternity cursed, and begged to join him when he went to his death, and Castiel had been beside him on this road ever since.
They were practically married already. There was almost nothing about him that Cas didn't know, or know better than Dean himself. He'd seen him naked, seem him in joy, seen him at his lowest. Why not this as well? Why not surrender to this? It certainly felt right. Castiel's intimate, loving touches felt like any loving touch might, and it didn't really matter what his gender was, ultimately; what mattered far more was the fact that it was love. Cas loved him, had always loved him, and Dean - blind as he might have been, intentionally or not - damn well loved him too.
Nobody was left to judge him for that. The spectre of his father was dead. Sam was much too happy to needle him. Dean was too worn out on his own long life of distress to fight himself over it any more. Loving Cas wasn't inflicted on him. It wasn't a chore. He fell into it like he was falling into a new suit, or maybe changing lane, heading down a road that had never kissed his wheels before.
It was such a breath of fresh air, that upon waking up to Cas' gentle nudging, Dean felt lighter, more content, than he ever had before. He was buoyed with his love. Then, as Cas warned him that Sam was half a mile away and closing fast, he was buoyed with the need to get off his bed, grab his clothes and streak his naked ass back to their room.
But by midnight, exhaustion from the day's events and a glow of utter adoration and relief had settled over him. He knew that his life had changed, that it wasn't going to change back, and where before he'd been hesitant to touch Cas, or be touched by him, now he couldn't keep his hands off, confusing the angel with the way his affection lingered in every possible way.
Dean wasn't a shy lover--or boyfriend, he supposed. He had no reason to hide from Sam what Sam already knew, and he watched Cas like he'd never seen him before, let his hands slide down his arms and settle against his hip, sat close behind him and bent across him to eat his dinner from the angel's untouched plate, sighed and kissed against his ear before getting up to help Lucille with the washing up. Dean was in love, and he swam in it, let himself drown in it.
And Cas had never been so beautiful, so vibrant. Dean noticed all the little twitches of his expression more than he ever had--or maybe Castiel was just smiling more, and the light in his eyes was the same lightness that Dean felt in his own soul. The contentment that thrummed in the angel was his own contentment, and Dean didn't think he was projecting. No, they were both happier now, there was no doubt.
Both of them were free to look toward the future, as well.
When Castiel carried a crying Mary off to her room - she had dropped her jelly pot on the floor - Dean padded after him, watching from the doorway as Cas soothed and chided, setting the toddler down in her cot. Cas smiled that soft smile that was only for the kids, and Dean chewed his lip clean off as the angel settled into the chair beside the cot.
"Now dry your tears," Cas was saying, brushing the backs of his hands against her cheeks. She was tired, and the tears weren't a surprising consequence. "You see? All gone."
As Dean closed on the pair of them, Castiel settled down beside the cot, silent as Mary laid her head down. This time, the puppies had been locked out, helped to stay beyond the threshold by the gently tips of Dean's boots.
"You gonna sing again?" he asked, looping his arms across the angel's shoulders. He could barely keep his hands off him, and now that they were all but alone, he couldn't convince himself not to. His angel. His.
"I don't think it will be necessary," Cas murmured. His voice had descended to a low hum, and as Dean peered down into the cot, sure enough, Mary drifted off to sleep, her cheeks still raw and pink from her tears.
"She's pretty cute," Dean sighed, bending down to nudge his nose into Cas' hair.
"She is," Cas agreed. He tipped his face up, as though seeking out Dean's gaze, and so he straightened minutely to make it more attainable. "What is it?"
"It's just what you were saying earlier, about kids. I guess it is a moot point, now."
"Yes."
"Probably best. Sam took all the good names anyway. Except..." Dean rattled his brain, as he shook his head roughly. It was a dumb idea, or at least he felt like it was one. Dean's confidence in the biggest and most spectacular of his ideas was always piss poor, and this was perhaps the biggest and most spectacular idea he'd had yet.
"What?" Cas pressed.
"It's just... There's kids out there, like me and Sam. Kids who maybe their parents weren't there for them, or hurt them. Kids who maybe never had anyone at all." His time at the boy's home, short as it might have been, had showed him that he was part of a world where kids lost their parents all the time, and when he looked at Sam's kids, he thought of them. He couldn't help them all, but what if he could make life better for one or two? Give them a home, a family.
"You'd be a good dad, Cas, and..." He trailed off, suddenly stricken by the weight of what he was suggesting. Dean felt his heart racing, felt fear and denial rushing in. He hadn't thought it through. It was stupid. It'd mean giving up hunting, the only thing that he'd ever known.
Except hadn't he known what a home was, once? What love was? What normal was? He had known that and Sam hadn't, and yet Sam had managed to do just fine, had put all the pieces together without being shown the ropes.
"We can talk about it later?" Cas suggested, catching on to his discomfort.
"No, I... It's just..."
"You didn't say that you'd be a good father as well," Castiel continued.
Dean grimaced, and looked away, looked at the opposite wall. "Maybe cause I don't believe it."
"You should," Cas said. "John and Adam, they look up to you. How you raised Sam, raised him right, did everything you possibly could to keep him safe, gave him a home when he didn't know what one was--it's apparently all he ever talks about. They told me all about it, yesterday."
"Sam says that stuff about me?"
"To his children. You're his hero, Dean. You're the reason that he has all of this. He just wants you to be happy as well."
Just as Dean was about to respond to that, there was a gentle knock on the door to the nursery. The door peeled open, and Sam stepped carefully inside.
"Speak of the devil," Dean said, and with a fond twinge, he regretted it. Their experiences with Lucifer might be behind them, but he was standing in the room with the only two people who had been vessels to Satan himself and lived.
Sam didn't seem to mind. He'd always just been somehow over it. He smiled wryly at Dean's selfconsciousness. "She asleep?"
"Yeah," Dean answered.
"Good." Sam tipped his head back, relieved, and then - still in his hushed voice, and suddenly breaking into a vicious smirk - he fixed Dean with a playful glare. "So which one of you is going to explain it?"
"Explain what?" Dean asked. Surely Sam didn't mean this entire thing between him and Cas? They'd not said anything at dinner, but the knowing looks the adults had all shared over the table had told the whole tale. Sam didn't want the gorey details, right?
Right?
No, it was worse than that. Beside him, Castiel suddenly tensed in a way that Dean recognized personally as "I forgot to put any gas in the tank, and the milemarkers say no gas until St. Louis."
Meanwhile, Sam's grin hadn't abated. "How my lube made its way to the bedside cabinet from the closet, without me touching it."
Dean glanced down at Cas, who was avoiding looking straight at either of them. He'd clearly forgotten in the rush to abandon Sam's room. No wonder he'd tensed up like a greyhound at the starting gate. Dean, however, didn't even have the decency to blush. He grinned back up at Sam.
"Magic. Incidentally, little brother--anal beads, really?"
Sam turned white, and ducked out of the room, and Dean had to smother his laugh with his fist to keep from waking Mary. He slid the fingers of his other hand against Cas' shoulder, and the angel's fingers wound into his own possessively. Sure, maybe they were out of gas, but maybe there was another way. Maybe there was another road. It didn't matter, so long as Cas was riding shotgun: they'd make it to the stars together.